the SHAW Blog

The New Year is always a great time to make some major changes in your life. 2018 can be your year to start anew. While some may make unattainable resolutions, a recent article from Entrepreneur.com gives us 18 ways to be a happier, healthier person this New Year:

Exercise. The endorphins and energy from working out can serve you well.

Eat Healthier. Providing your body with the right nutrients is essential to being happy.

Spend time outside. Connect with nature and reap the benefits.

Be Grateful. Grateful people are happier and more content with life.

Spend time with people you love. Spending time with those you enjoy rather then despise is a great start to huge changes in your life.

Learn something new. Better yourself with a new skill or talent this New Year.

Don’t worry about what others think. Do you and forget about the judgment of others.

Meditate. Meditation has been proven to increase happiness ratings.

Smile more. Smiling does wonders for your brains chemistry.

Love yourself. True happiness starts with loving yourself first.

Experience life. Life is made up of memories. Experience life to the fullest.

Give back to your community. Altruistic acts serve to increase our happiness giving us that warm fuzzy feeling we all enjoy.

No matter who you are or where you have come from, everyone has had his or her fair share of happy moments in life. These bouts of happiness sometimes happen without a rhyme or reason, but what we do know about them is that they usually leave us only wanting more.

So what if we could actually reprogram our brains to put us in those happy moments more often, would we do it?

It is common knowledge that our brains are plastic in nature and that we can mold them to some extent for learning and making it through our day-to-day. Walter Chen believes that we can take this further and actually rewire our brains to think more positively and thus, bring about more happiness. Naturally, our brains are searching for all the negatives in life because it’s a means to keep us safe from possible dangers. The practice of living with more happiness asks us to do just the opposite and instead focus on the positives we see in our lives.

Chen says scanning for three positive things a day and reflecting on them should do the trick. Chen also suggests giving thanks to at least one person a day. By recognizing their efforts and letting them know you value them, you are taking a step outside of yourself for just a second. Chen also claims that doing something nice for others will also help with your own positivity. Volunteering, donating to charity, or any other random act of kindness can boost your own happiness tremendously. Lastly, Chen suggests practicing mindfulness and bringing your attention to the present. He believes that living anywhere but the present can lead to negative feelings.

Aside from Chen’s suggestions, we can also do the following to maintain a positive lifestyle:

Choose to become a realistic optimist

Control our automatic negative thoughts

Keep a gratitude journal

Recite positive affirmations

Cultivate mindfulness

Surround yourself with positive, supportive people

Stay Active

Don’t sit with negativity, and learn to accept it as part of life. Let SHAW Center for Healing join you on your journey to more positive thinking and happiness.

Gratitude oftentimes doesn’t seem to have a place in our fast paced, consumerism focused society. We are constantly being told we want more and what we have isn’t good enough. This wanting more and not being content with what we have can really turn into a sickness for us. Thankfully, we find that we can cultivate this gratitude as a spiritual practice and allow it to enrich our lives. According to Zen teacher David Loy, gratitude can help us stay grounded as we face our troubles, find compassion for the world and the people in it and reach an inner happiness only we can unlock.

So how does one cultivate gratitude?

Zen teacher David Loy believes incorporating gratitude in ones life can be as easy as making a list of ten things one is appreciative of. With each successive list, we find gratitude easier throughout the day because we now look for it. It’s all about the mindset and when we live in such a headspace, happiness and contentment finds us.

Another way we find this gratitude is by showing it to the people we have in our life. Appreciating them can benefit not only their self-esteem, but also bring about this elusive gratitude in us. Doing so can also have the added benefit of making us feel the strong interconnection we have as humans. When we find this interconnection, we can realize that we are not alone on our journey and that our wellbeing spans further than our physical self.

The alarm sounds, snooze, it sounds again, snooze, and in my morning slumber ... I begin my day with gratitude saying softly thank you Mother Earth, Father Sun, and Higher Self for waking me up sober and not hungover, thank you for another amazing day clean, thank for the love that surrounds me, thank you for the light that shines through me, thank you...

The alarm sounds again, snooze... Time to create the day: As a thinker, speaker, doer of the highest and best intentions, I AM a dynamic, enthusiastic participant in life. Divine ideas flow through me and through my thoughts, actions, and words. I AM honest, open-minded, and willing today. I AM courageous. I am a man of my word. I AM humble. I AM self-disciplined today. I AM beautiful from the inside-out. I AM a beacon of light. I AM surround by love. I AM at peace with myself and the world. I AM love. I AM amazing.

As I crawl out of bed, I prepare myself for another day of channeling the light and love of Universe by turning on some Bach, nourishing my body with breakfast, pressing my clothes, feeding the little kitties, allowing the water of the shower to awaken my cells and connect me to the all-that-is, dressing, and softly saying goodbye to my beautiful spouse.

When I arrive at the SHAW Center for Healing, the first thing that I notice when I open the door is the beautiful light that shines through the windows. Thank you Father Sun and Mother Earth for such an incredible sacred space, I say. Thank you for another day of love, healing, and transformation.

As I prepare the space energetically, I meditate with this beautiful affirmation from Paul Selig that sits on my desk:

As I lift my light to be seen by my fellows,As I lift my worth to be received by myself,I align myself to service so that so that my gifts may be realized,So that my gifts may be shared, so that my gifts may be seen,And I may accept myself in my divine plan:A manifestation of the Creator in form, here to sing my song for the benefit of all.I know who I am, I know what I am, I know how I serve.I am Word, I am Word, I am Word.